Cleveland sports curse

• 1. Introduction

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  The Cleveland sports curse held a city hostage for 52 years. From 1964 to 2016, three major league franchises in Cleveland, Ohio competed, agonized, and fell short in ways that seemed almost engineered by fate. The Browns of the NFL, the Cavaliers of the NBA, and the then-Indians of Major League Baseball racked up a combined 147 seasons without a single championship title between them.

  How does a city go that long without winning? The answer involves a running back stripped of the ball two yards from the goal line, a center fielder making an over-the-shoulder catch in the largest outfield in baseball, and a franchise owner who moved his team in the middle of the night. It involves Michael Jordan hanging in the air over a defender to end a series, and a manager who blew a ninth-inning lead in Game 7 of the World Series. It involves draft picks turned into superstars for other cities, coaches who became legends after leaving Cleveland, and a television special that fractured a fanbase.

  And then, on a June night in Oakland in 2016, it ended. The Cavaliers won Game 7 of the NBA Finals after trailing three games to one, becoming the first team in Finals history to overcome that deficit. The question the rest of this documentary will answer is not just how Cleveland finally won, but how 52 years of near-misses became a story unto itself.

• 2. The Browns and Their Wounds

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  The Cleveland Browns won the 1964 NFL Championship Game 27-0 against the Baltimore Colts at Cleveland Stadium. The Colts were heavily favored, coached by Don Shula, and quarterbacked by Pro Football Hall of Famer Johnny Unitas. The Browns' victory that day was the last championship the franchise has ever won.

  Much of what followed traces back to owner Art Modell, who fired the team's original architect, head coach Paul Brown, early in 1963. The Browns that beat Baltimore that year were built substantially from players Paul Brown had drafted and developed. Over the 30 years Modell owned the team in Cleveland, not one of his squads won the league or conference title, though they did reach seven AFL/AFC championship games.

  Star running back Jim Brown retired before the 1966 season rather than pay fines Modell levied after production delays on the film The Dirty Dozen kept him from training camp. Jim Brown had won three MVPs, made the Pro Bowl in all nine years of his career, and was the NFL's all-time leading rusher at the time of his retirement. His absence began a steady unraveling.

  The playoff losses accumulated with almost theatrical cruelty. In 1980, a pass called "Red Right 88" by head coach Sam Rutigliano was intercepted in the end zone with the Browns in field goal range and trailing by two points with under a minute left against the Raiders. In 1986, Broncos quarterback John Elway led a 98-yard game-tying drive in just over five minutes in the fourth quarter, a drive that became known as "The Drive." The following year, running back Earnest Byner was stripped of the ball near the goal line late in the fourth quarter with the Browns trailing 38-31, an event forever called "The Fumble."

  Art Modell moved the franchise to Baltimore after the 1995 season despite the team having gone 11-5 the previous year. The personnel became the Baltimore Ravens. The Ravens won a Super Bowl in only their fifth year of existence, with former Browns tight end Ozzie Newsome as their general manager. Meanwhile, coach Bill Belichick, fired by Modell after the 1995 season, eventually joined the New England Patriots and won six Super Bowls there. The Browns passed on selecting Kurt Warner in the 1999 expansion draft; Warner went on to win the NFL MVP award twice and helped the Rams win Super Bowl XXXIV.

  After returning to the NFL in 1999, the Browns selected Tim Couch as their franchise quarterback, but Couch struggled without a strong supporting roster and was gone after 2003. In 2011, the Browns traded the sixth overall pick to Atlanta; the Falcons used it to select Julio Jones, who became one of the decade's best receivers. The Browns used a different first-round pick on Johnny Manziel, whose career ended in 2015 amid off-field problems. The franchise went 0-16 in the 2017 season under head coach Hue Jackson, making them only the second team to lose every game of a 16-game season, joining the 2008 Detroit Lions.

• 3. The Cavaliers and the Shot

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  Craig Ehlo gave the Cleveland Cavaliers a lead with three seconds left in Game 5 of a 1989 first-round playoff series against the Chicago Bulls. Michael Jordan then jumped over Ehlo to make a game-winning shot that ended the series 101-100, a play known simply as The Shot. It was the first of five times Jordan's Bulls eliminated the Cavaliers during the Brad Daugherty, Larry Nance, and Mark Price era.

  The franchise had struggled from the start. Through their first 16 years, the Cavaliers produced just three winning seasons. Owner Ted Stepien damaged the team in the early-to-mid 1980s by trading away every first-round pick the team held; those picks became players of the caliber of James Worthy and Derek Harper on other rosters. The 1975-76 squad, known as the "Miracle at Richfield" team, ran a deep playoff run before an injury to Jim Chones ended their chances.

  Ohio native LeBron James brought the Cavaliers to their first NBA Finals appearance in 2007, where the San Antonio Spurs swept them. Two years later, despite a conference-best 66-16 record, the Cavaliers lost the Eastern Conference Finals to the Orlando Magic 4-2. The following season, James and a 61-21 Cavaliers squad were beaten in Game 5 of the Conference Semifinals by the visiting Boston Celtics 120-88, and lost the series 4-2.

  Then came The Decision. In the summer of 2010, James announced on a television special that he was leaving for the Miami Heat, informing the Cavaliers just moments before the broadcast. The quote "In this fall - this is very tough - in this fall I'm gonna take my talents to South Beach and join the Miami Heat" was heavily criticized. James, alongside Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh, led Miami to four consecutive Finals appearances and two championships. Without him, the Cavaliers set an NBA record by losing 26 consecutive games in the 2010-11 season.

  James returned after the 2013-14 season. Cleveland then traded Andrew Wiggins and Anthony Bennett for Kevin Love to build a Big Three with James and Kyrie Irving. The 2015 Finals ended with losses to injury: Anderson Varejao ruptured his Achilles tendon, Love dislocated his shoulder, and Irving fractured his patella in Game 1. Still, the depleted Cavaliers took a 2-1 series lead before falling 4-2 to Golden State.

  Coach David Blatt was fired during the 2015-16 season despite a 30-11 start, replaced by assistant Tyronn Lue. The team finished 57-25 and reached the Finals again, this time against the same Warriors squad that had broken the all-time single-season wins record at 73 victories. Down 3-1, the Cavaliers won three straight. In Game 7, James blocked Andre Iguodala on a fast break late in the fourth quarter in a play Cavaliers fans call The Block. Kyrie Irving followed with a three-pointer to put Cleveland ahead 92-89 with 53 seconds left. Kevin Love, switched onto Stephen Curry one-on-one, stayed in front of the Warriors star long enough for Curry to miss a three-point attempt. The final score ended 52 years of drought.

• 4. The Indians and Their Near-Misses

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  In 1954, the Cleveland Indians won 111 games, the only time between 1949 and 1958 that the New York Yankees did not win the American League pennant. Heavily favored against the New York Giants in the World Series, the Indians watched first baseman Vic Wertz hit a deep fly ball to center field in the eighth inning of Game 1. At the Polo Grounds, with its famously deep 483-foot center field, the ball stayed in play. Willie Mays made an over-the-shoulder, no-look running catch to rob Wertz of an extra-base hit with the game tied. In the bottom of the tenth inning, Giants batter Dusty Rhodes hit a walk-off home run, and the Giants swept the heavily favored Indians in what became one of the biggest upsets in World Series history.

  The Cleveland Scene dubbed the Indians' long championship failure "The Curse of Chief Wahoo," named after the Native American caricature that had served as the team's cap insignia. The Indians considered removing the logo in 1993; it remained on home caps, alternate away caps, and jersey sleeves until 2019. Another supposed source of the curse, the Curse of Rocky Colavito, was frequently cited. The 1989 film Major League was based on the team's struggles, as the Indians had finished within five games of a playoff spot just three times between 1955 and 1989.

  The 1995 Indians won 100 games and reached the World Series for the first time in 41 years, but lost in six games to the Atlanta Braves, led by pitchers Greg Maddux, John Smoltz, and World Series MVP Tom Glavine. The 1997 team held a 2-1 lead going into the bottom of the ninth inning of Game 7 of the World Series, only for closer José Mesa to blow the save on Craig Counsell's sacrifice fly. The Marlins tied the game in the ninth and won in the eleventh on a walk-off single by Edgar Renteria that deflected off pitcher Charles Nagy's glove.

  After winning division titles six times in seven seasons from 1995 to 2001, the Indians appeared in the postseason only twice over the next 14 years under the Dolan family ownership. In the 2007 American League Championship Series, they held a 3-1 lead over the Red Sox but lost the last three games by a combined score of 30-5. In 2016, weeks after the Cavaliers' championship, the Indians advanced to the World Series and held a 3-1 lead against the Chicago Cubs. The Cubs won the next three games to break their own championship drought. As a result, the Indians became the team with the longest active championship drought in baseball, a gap the source notes now stands at 77 seasons.

  The 2017 Indians won 102 games and set an American League record with a 22-game winning streak, but lost the Division Series to the New York Yankees 3-2.

• 5. Championships in the Shadow

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  While the city's three major franchises failed, other Cleveland sports organizations won titles that rarely enter the curse conversation. The Cleveland Crunch, an indoor soccer club in the National Professional Soccer League, won their first championship in 1994, defeating the St. Louis Ambush 3-1 in a best-of-five series. It was the first professional Cleveland championship in 30 years. The Crunch won again in 1996 and 1999 before the league disbanded in 2001. The franchise was later revived and won the 2021 M2 Championship in its first season back.

  On the 11th of June 2016, the Lake Erie Monsters of the American Hockey League won the Calder Cup at Quicken Loans Arena, the same arena shared with the Cavaliers, by defeating the Hershey Bears 4-0 in the series. The Monsters were owned by Dan Gilbert, who also owned the Cavaliers. Eight days after the Monsters won, the Cavaliers claimed the NBA title in the same building.

  The Monsters' Calder Cup win was the 10th for a Cleveland hockey franchise. The original Cleveland Barons, who played from 1937 to 1973, had won nine Calder Cups. Their last had come in 1964, the same year the Browns won the NFL championship and the last time any of Cleveland's major league franchises had won before the 2016 Cavaliers.

  On the 14th of May 2016, mixed martial artist Stipe Miocic, a native of the Cleveland suburb of Euclid, knocked out Brazil's Fabricio Werdum to win the UFC Heavyweight Championship at UFC 198 in Curitiba, Brazil. Three hours before his fight, ESPN aired a 30 for 30 episode called "Believeland" documenting Cleveland's major-league title drought. The Indians and Cavaliers congratulated Miocic on Twitter shortly after his win. Miocic himself, in his post-fight interview, characterized his title as ending Cleveland's 52-year drought. Most commentary, however, treated the Cavaliers' Finals win six weeks later as the moment that officially closed that chapter.